


Nothing To Say

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Belonging, Episode: s01e01 Rising, Episode: s02e08 Conversion, Episode: s03e09 Phantoms, F/M, Family, Friendship, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Actions speak louder than words. When it comes to John Sheppard, Teyla has always known this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing To Say

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by several scenes through the series, and a fragment from the SGA Legacy book _The Lost_ by Jo Graham and Amy Griswold, but no spoilers.

_There is nothing you need to say.  
There is nothing you could say to me  
That your actions have not said a thousand times._

Teyla to John in ‘The Lost’  
by Jo Graham and Amy Griswold

Teyla still remembers the morning they met - by dawn’s first light in a tent where her people took their breakfast and drank tea to start the day: Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan’s line, and John Sheppard who liked ferris wheels and football.

That day, she watched him smile - the unpractised smile of someone who was not a trader by nature, but who saw that friendliness cost him nothing, and might gain them more useful things than the information they desired.

\--

Teyla catches up with Colonel Sheppard when he holds the transporter door open for her to hurry in.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Where are you headed?”

“The gym. Lieutenant Cadman has asked for sparring lessons.”

The Colonel nods and taps at the appropriate point on the screen. “You’re okay giving lessons?”

“Are the lessons a problem?”

“Oh, no.” The doors slide open and he gestures her out. “I just wanted to make sure there weren’t other things you’d rather be doing. You shouldn’t have to train marines.”

Teyla turns her head to regard him with some surprise. “That has never been a problem before. Are there concerns?”

“What? No! Nobody minds-- I mean, it’s not like you’re corrupting anyone.” John gives her a sideways glance, a curve tilting one corner of his mouth. “You’re not, are you?”

“I believe that it is more likely the they are corrupting me. Lieutenant Cadman has been inviting me to a ‘girls’ poker night’.”

“Yeah, you’ll want to watch those girls’ poker nights. I’ve heard they can get pretty wild.” As though realising that this is probably not a topic he should be pursuing, John coughs. “So, I haven’t been keeping up with my sparring lately...”

“As I had noticed.”

“So...when’s a good time?” He meets her gaze without flinching. “I promise not to do anything...uncharacteristic again.”

His reassurance is appreciated, although unnecessary. Teyla trusted that the last time was an aberration, although she wonders a little what it would be like to be kissed by John Sheppard when his instincts are not roused by alien DNA in his body. But it warms her that he should apologise for something over which he had no control.

Unless he did.

But that is a complication Teyla is not yet ready to entertain. It is one thing to make friends in this city of the Ancestors, it is quite another to take a lover from among them.

“Shall we say tomorrow morning? Before breakfast?”

He winces at the time - John prefers the late morning or late afternoon, but he nods, accepting her time and not trying to argue for a change. “Okay. Have fun with Cadman,” he adds as he heads off down another corridor towards the armoury.

\--

Teyla goes looking for John as soon as she is released from the infirmary.

He was quiet when they returned from Atlantis and during his visits to her and Rodney during their convalescence.

Ronon thought it to be nothing more than the weight of loss - Major Leonard’s entire team, and most of Lieutenant Kagan’s. Rodney thought it John’s guilt trip - incidentally, entirely justified - due to shooting his own team.

Teyla thinks of the undercurrents that threaded John’s conversation as they sat in a jungle he did not see and he spoke with a man long dead, and believes otherwise.

“Hey, Teyla.” He looks up from the table, his paperwork spread out around him in the morning sun. “I see the evil Dr. Beckett has finally released you from his lair of torture.”

“It was a terrible experience,” she says solemnly. “Much pleading was required to persuade him to free me. But I have prevailed.”

“So I see.” He smiles, but there’s a reserve in his gaze - an uncertainty that squeezes her heart. “What can I do for you?”

“I was thinking that perhaps you might have time to ferry me out to the mainland? I have not seen my people in several days and would relish the opportunity to spend time with them.”

There’s a moment when she sees him consider sending her with someone else. To her eyes, the thought is writ clear in his face, as though he had shouted it aloud. It stings, but she does not permit herself anger. John keeps his friends close and his secrets closer, and he is not comfortable with what he might have said or done while thinking himself with Captain Holland.

Once Teyla might had been annoyed that he thought her such a danger; that he might think she would blab to just anyone around them.

Time and experience - with John, with Atlantis, with the peoples of the expedition, and with the US military - has taught her otherwise.

“Yeah,” he says at last, stretching out. “I can do that.”

Teyla can see he still expects her interrogation on the flight there - or perhaps upon their return. She can see he thinks she will ask him questions that he must answer: a burden of friendship.

Yet he is still going to fly her out to see her people, risking the possibility that his private fears may be brought up, resurrected, used against him as weapons, like the zombie dead of his favoured movies. Facing the possibility of a conversation between them - all in the name of friendship.

He does not know that she will not broach the subject; but he would face her questioning nevertheless.

In that, Teyla sees a courage that is somehow greater than that which he showed in going in after Captain Holland.

\--

Teyla is in the mess hall, trying to feed a screaming, squealing Torren amidst the midday rush and coming perilously close to behaviour that would doubtless see the authorities on Earth take Torren from her for being a bad mother.

After all, they claim that Atlantis was being to put to no particular use by Pegasus before the Earth expedition came along, so why should they want it back now?

In the midst of an overturned cup of green beans awash in a flood of overturned milk, a ‘burger patty’ that tastes nothing like any meat Teyla has had on any planet in Pegasus or in the mess hall or MRE of Atlantis, and a mess of soft white rice, Torren is flatly refusing to sit still and eat.

Teyla is not up to the task of being an understanding mother right now.

She is tired from speaking with IOA representatives all day. She is angry at some minor and insignificant snideness that one of them let drop. She is heartsore and missing Pegasus and the small freedoms she was always afforded - even living in Atlantis.

She does not want to be dealing with a stubborn and obstreperous boy who has found his feet and quite intends to use them - even if he causes a catastrophe by tripping other people up while running through the maze of tables and chairs.

“You look like you could use some help,” says a familiar voice. John slides his tray into the empty place across from her. “Hey little buddy...”

“Da!” Torren tries to scramble across the table - and through the mess littering it. He knows a rescue from the wrath of Mama when he sees one.

“You are back.” It is a stupid thing to say - of _course_ he is back! Yet her brain is not up to anything more.

“Got back an hour ago.” he tilts his head. “Want me to take him?”

“Please.” She relinquishes her son to John with some relief and starts cleaning up the mess. “How is your brother?”

“Dave’s fine.” As though realising that this is not a good way to hold a conversation, John adds, “He took some time off while I was there.”

“It must be nice to spend time with your family.” Teyla is a little distracted as she scrapes food back into the plates or the tray, otherwise she would think better of uttering such inanities. Abruptly, she realises her foolishness, and opens her mouth to apologise, but John is already speaking.

“I’m sorry about Atlantis being stuck here.”

The words startle her. What has he heard? Have they made a decision already? “We are not going back--?”

“No! I mean, not yet. I mean, yeah, we are going back, but just not now. It’s just... Your people. And not being able to get back to them.” His eyes slide away, partly because Torran is attempting to grab his hair and partly, she thinks, because of Kanaan. John and Kanaan never quite managed to reach an easy degree of friendship.

Then again, that is the story of Kanaan’s time in the city - a little uncomfortable, polite, but not quite easy.

And there was nothing Teyla could do about it, nothing she could say that might heal the breach. Kanaan is not comfortable in the city, and Teyla is not comfortable living the life she once lived among her people. They will always be hers, and she will always belong to them, but they are not the people to whom she retreats when she needs comfort.

They are not family.

John gently extracts his hair from Torren’s grasp, and grins at Teyla’s son, fond as any parent. That grin fades a little when he finds Teyla watching him.

And she smiles. A tender smile for the wounded soul in him, who understands that family is where you are at home and not necessarily those related to you by blood.

“It is good to have you home, John.”

\--

In the breathless moments after they sprawl across the wooden floor, unmoving, Teyla can feel John’s heart pounding against her breast.

His hand cradles her nape, close enough to hold her near, gently enough that she can leave if she wishes.

Teyla tilts her face so her cheek brushes the stubble of his jaw.

No words are said.

 ****


End file.
